“I have a shelter in the storm When troubles pour upon me Though fears are rising like a flood My soul can rest securely O Jesus, I will hide in You My place of peace and solace No trial is deeper than Your love That comforts all my sorrows” Just about the only people writing proper good hymns today are Sovereign Grace Music and the above verse is one of theirs. It’s rather applicable to my life currently as I find myself halfway through fourth year, approaching graduation and with everywhere I applied to for a job rejecting my applications. As a planner I don’t like uncertainty and not knowing both what I want to do and what I will do frustrates me. It’s a real effort not to worry and by real effort I mean a complete failure on my part not to worry. Yet why so I feel this way? “Cast your anxieties on God because he cares for you.” it says in 1 Peter 5 v 7. That verse alone is enough to grant me peace, God cares for me! What then do I have to fear? What is there to be worried about? Course, truth is I’m a functional unbeliever in this great truth. While ascribing to it with mouth in deed I worry. One of my favourite Psalms is number 91. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” the opening line goes. And it on this theme I want to think on, inspired by the hymn above. It’s not an uncommon image God uses to describe himself: “God is our refuge.” Psalm 46 starts with. I’m sure that we’ve all had to walk home in bad weather, most of my readers live in Scotland, so that’s a very safe bet! We all know that we look forward to getting inside because outside it’s cold, wet and miserable yet inside its warm, safe and covered. We’re protected from the elements, secure in our shelter and safe from the mad axe man. There’s nothing that quite beats the happiness of staggering into a warm home and relaxing into comfort. Our God is like a shelter, he protects us from trouble, warms us with all his promises of love and goodness and provides us with all comfort. As Psalm 91 goes onto to say: “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand. But it will not come near me.” I love, whenever I read this verse, to imagine a huge Lord of the Rings type battle, like the one where the Rohirrim charge down onto Pelanor fields. I’m strolling across the battlefield, men dying all around me and boom, a thousand orcs die to my left and then ten thousand men fall on my right, but I’m there, secure, walking through a battle, because I know that my God is with me. “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.” runs verse 4 of Psalm 91 and this is another gem, for God stoops to comparing himself to a mother hen, gathering her chicks under her wings, keeping them safe and secure from all the troubles out there. This is how God treats his people, his wings surround them, covering them and protecting them. “Be still and know that I am God” it says in Psalm 46 and often our worrying and fretting come from a lack of stillness and a lack of knowing. It is good to get into the habit of calming ourselves and knowing that God is God. We have to remind ourselves that he is our refuge and strength, our ever present help in trouble. Worry is unbelief. So let us cry out to God: "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9v24) Worrying is self-centred: what will happen to me? How will I deal with this? Why is this happening? And we glance about us with the eye of sight trying to second guess the future. But to quote Samuel Rutherford: “It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes; as, 'Oh the place!' 'Oh the time!' 'Oh if this had been, this had not followed!' Oh the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the master motion and the first wheel.” What will happen to me? Only what comes from God’s gracious hand of providence. How will I deal with this? By the richness of the grace he will give you. Why is this happening? For your good. God provides us with all the answers we might ever need were we but still enough to know them. It is hard, to wrest our thoughts from second causes and fix them on the first cause, it is harder still to trust the first cause, to trust God especially when our eyes beholds second causes which seem terrible to us. But he is our shelter, our refuge and strength, our God in whom we trust. Step in from the outside, step in from the rain of worry and the chill of fretting and step into the warmth of every promise and gracious word of encouragement to be found in the shelter of God. “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadows of your wing.” Psalm 17v8. I think that my biggest failure with worry is that I do not take myself to his Word. I do not preach to myself; I listen to myself. Oh, that every time worry overcomes me I would take myself to the Bible and feast on every comfort within! “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation.” (Psalm 18 v2) It is good as well, when worrying, to switch to thanksgiving ("It is good to give thanks to the Lord" (Psalm 92v1)) and recount to ourselves every answer to prayer, every good thing God has worked for us, for so we bring to mind what our lives all testify to: "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." It is easier to know this in hindsight about events of years ago so we must look back then look forward and smile, knowing that the God who looked after us then is the everlasting God who looks after us now and will look after us in the present. I have a shelter in the storm
When troubles pour upon me Though fears are rising like a flood My soul can rest securely O Jesus, I will hide in You My place of peace and solace No trial is deeper than Your love That comforts all my sorrows I have a shelter in the storm When all my sins accuse me Though justice charges me with guilt Your grace will not refuse me O Jesus, I will hide in You Who bore my condemnation I find my refuge in Your wounds For there I find salvation I have a shelter in the storm When constant winds would break me For in my weakness, I have learned Your strength will not forsake me O Jesus, I will hide in You The One who bears my burdens With faithful hands that cannot fail You’ll bring me home to heaven
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